Making Sense of the Senses, the Center for Book Arts’ annual artist members’ exhibition currently on view, demonstrates the vitality and variety to be found in the art of the book. A dizzying platform for experimentation in visual narrative, the discipline of artist books can be described as a multimedia form whose end result is an object. Whether it takes the form of a book-like object, a video presentation, an installation, or a sculpture, executed in paper, metal or toast—that’s right, toasted sourdough bread is present—is up to the artist. This Wednesday, five of the artists, together with curator Alexander Campos, will gather for a roundtable discussion at the Center.

This exhibition presents artists' books and related works that employ one or more of the senses: hearing, smell, sight, taste, and touch. Divided roughly into five sections, one for each sense, the show incudes a flipbook by Antonio Guerra accompanied by a cigarette and cigarette box, located in the Smell section, but which could have been easily installed in the Taste section. Wardah Naeem Bukhari's Magic Tea Cups are in Taste but could have been placed in Sight, since the text appears only when hot water is added to the cups. 

In the Sound section, master engrave George A. Walker’s Wordless Leonard Cohen Songbook, in celebration of the singer-songwriter's 80th birthday, is written in a xylography of wood engravings that is accessible to readers of any language. Thomas Parker Williams's The Free Circle: Improvisations on the Circle of Fifths illustrates the relationships of all of the major and relative minor scales in even-tempered music on six circular panels, with two additional circular folders containing a music CD and a video DVD.

Around the corner, Julie Chen's Bon Bon Mots, bridging Taste and Touch, takes the form of several confection-like book structures, including a phrasebook of social graces and a calendar recording each day’s guilt and worries. The texts mix sadness and sweetness in equal proportions, housed in an old-fashioned "candy box" enclosure (above left).  And Irwin Susskind tempts us to feel the grain of his Wood Panel Book (above right) despite the "Do Not Touch" sign that accompanies his work.

Making Sense of the Senses continues at the Center for Book Arts through  September 24th. On Wednesday, August 3rd, the Center hosts an Artist  Roundtable Discussion with Josely Carvalho, Ximena Perez Grobet, Susan Maffei, Robbin Ami Silverberg, and Thomas Parker Williams at 6:30 pm; a reception for the artists follows. 28 West 27th Street, third floor, NY, NY Info [BookArts12.18]